A few weeks ago I went to an event with some co-workers; it featured a keynote speaker. I knew nothing about them but read the blurb, in between the mingling bustle beforehand, of how they’d admirably overcome extreme obstacles of poverty and limited education. Now, they try to help break the barriers for others by promoting community involvement and outreach.

During one of the segments, there was a short interview with the person’s mother. The lady had no teeth. It wasn’t her lack of teeth I found shocking but the way it jarred the speaker’s message. Yes, it’s very likely the video may have been for dramatic effect– to show the speaker’s roots, as it were, but even that idea is unsettling. Assuming it has been met, and the image of the mother was staged, why? It negates the progress of the speaker’s determination of improving lives. Why not acknowledge that progress?

This vision of helping others is eclipsed by the image of a very basic and unfulfilled need within their very family. It’s so important to care for those closest to you first. Gracefully without hurting their self-respect.

It undermined the altruistic message. Don’t make a speech, show me.

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Where My Books Go

ALL the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken'd or starry bright.

- William Butler Yeats

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea & the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;